The Acid Test

President Trump and President Xi of China are now engaged in a hot trade war ... after, apparently, a cordial start at Mar-a-Largo soon after Trump was inaugurated and Xi was elevated to president for life. The back and forth escalation of tariffs and broken commitments is complicated ... so, if you need a reprise, please visit: US-China Tariff Timeline.

As seen in the above, China’s obvious strategy in defeating the United States in this trade war is to trump Trump in the 2020 election  ... hoping for a more pliant Democrat to replace him ... Biden, for instance, who it has already greased with a $1.5 billion “investment” in his son, Hunter’s “hedge fund.” Most people suspected this slow-walk strategy when the mutual trade talks leading to a tentative pact was abrogated by China this past May. This complicated deal had been arduously hammered out over the many previous months. And this slap was followed by a Chinese agricultural purchasing agreement that was also shortly reneged on.

Needless to say, this trade war is now getting hotter and the back-and-forth quicker. Trump has even just labeled Xi his “enemy” which seems appropriate ... given the duplicity China has engaged in since May. So, a thinking person has to conclude that no good will possibly come of this tariff pissing contest until after November, 2020. And this then is the acid test.

The American voter quite likely will be given a choice in the next general election ... overcome any distaste for Trump’s reality-TV personality and vote for him ... or vote for the Democrat and signal capitulation to China ... in this extremely consequential trade war ... so consequential that it might well mean the beginning of the end of American hegemony in the world. I realize that this all sounds melodramatic ... but this contrast and it’s consequence is bound to be drawn more sharply in the months ahead.

So, kind reader, study up.

Afterward: Me thinks that China is banking on a substantial portion of the American public voting to have us step back from center stage and let someone else take over ... after all we voted twice for the man who clearly had this as an objective ... and the world cheered ... they even gave him the Nobel Peace Prize ... his name of course: Barack Hussein Obama.

Acid Test

There is a clear acid test to differentiate the foreign policies of Obama and Trump ... and that is now occurring in Iran. There, demonstrations are getting more deadly every day. What started as economic protests have blossomed into full-throated anti-mullah uprisings. The Iran government is a very repressive anti-American and anti-Israel theocracy ... trying to establish Shiite hegemony throughout the Sunni Middle East. However, Trump-style populism is even creeping into Tehran ... causing distrust of its leadership. The Persian government there is even forced now to augment its police and special forces with Gaza and Hezbollah Arabs.

When the Green Revolution took place after disputed elections in Iran back in 2009, President Obama turned his back on this infant insurrection ... and it died as did many of its supporters. Obama then went on to suck up to Iran's despotic mullahs by negotiating a horrible one-sided nuclear pact that gave Iran back $150  billion in frozen assets and an easy path to atomic weaponry ... as well as some other goodies ... Obama's $1.7 billion cash ransoming of American prisoners, his secret letters to the mullahs, his allowing the humiliation of U.S. sailors and his calling off the drug-enforcement dogs from Iran-backed Hezbollah ... all to placate, for some mysterious reason, a major sponsor of Islamic terrorism.

In opposition to what many consider to be capitulation on Obama's part, Trump is vigorously supporting these recent protests by the Iranian populus ... a populus that generally supports America. Trump has tweeted his enthusiastic endorsement of these mew Iranian insurgents ... saying the 'time has come' for these thuggish mullahs to be overthrown. Hopefully other nations will fall in line behind Trump.

So, the acid test now presents itself ... is Trump right to go with the Iranian populus ... or was Obama's mullah boot-licking the right policy? We should know the answer within Trump's first term in office.